-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
CEO Gregory Rayburn of Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies, Ho Ho’s, and Sno Balls, has announced plans to liquidate the 83-year old company. The company is in its second bankruptcy in a decade. Hostess sold about $2.5 billion worth of snack products last year with Twinkies leading the pack. However, the company has nearly $1 billion in debt and has $2 billion in unfunded pension obligations.
About 18,000 jobs are at stake. The unionized employees are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). BCTGM in September rejected a last, best and final offer from Hostess and went out on strike.
While Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn was planning to ask his employees for wage and benefit concessions, he was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000). Nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises.
Over the eight years since the first bankruptcy, Hostess employees have watched as:
money from previous concessions that was supposed to go towards capital investment, product development, plant improvement and new equipment, was squandered in executive bonuses, payouts to Wall Street investors and payments to high-priced attorneys and consultants.
BCTGM stated that “Our members are on strike because they have had enough.” The union’s members voted 92% to reject the company’s “best and final offer.”
Hostess plans to sell its most popular brands like Twinkies, CupCakes, Ding Dongs, Ho Ho’s, Sno Balls, and Donettes. In the mean time, Hostess products are flying off store shelves.
Competitors like Bimbo Bakeries USA (pronounced “Beembo”), also employing union workers and the largest bakery corporation in the US, may be a likely purchaser of some of the Hostess brands.
H/T: LGM, Think Progress, Policy Mic, Sacremento Bee, WSJ, Courthouse News.
@Gene: I agree, emotion is inherently irrational. But as I have described before; those that have lost their emotions due to accidental injury, cancer or surgery but still retain their rationality, are essentially disabled. Without joy or fear or greed or lust or boredom or irritation or some emotion to put a thumb on the scale of their decisions, they will heap reason on both sides of the scale in equal quantity until they fall asleep; they can’t pick a tie or blouse to wear. The can still do calculus in their head, but they can’t pick lunch from a menu (not without following arbitrary rules).
Apparently the rational mind will just spin its wheels until the emotional mind is convinced one way or another. So in that sense we are all slaves to our emotions. But I do not think that is the sense you mean.
In the sense I think you mean, I also believe that we must teach ourselves to resist impulsiveness and that we will be happier in the long run to make considered decisions and plans. It may be a fact of biology that an emotional reaction gets the final say, but it is best if that reaction is triggered by a rational expectation of what will happen in the real world.
nick,
the answer is yes. It doesn’t apply unless I have employees, if I understand it correctly.
That was an “insult” directed at me, Tony. He’s done it before. He seems to think that because – like you – I think reason should govern emotion but be informed by it, that it somehow equates to me not having emotions. Even Vulcans have emotions. They just don’t let them rule them. He who would be a slave to emotion submits to an inherently irrational master. That, I think, qualifies as a singular truth.
@Nick: If “Spock” refers to me; you could not be further from the truth. I firmly believe the rational mind exists as an adjunct and assistant to the more ancient emotional mind. Unlike Spock I embrace that, the reason for reason is to let us engineer a happier life.
Doubt is healthy; denial is not. Sometimes there simply are not two ways about it, sometimes the truth is singular.
Bron,
You expect a rational insult where there is little, no or defective reasoning?
Come on. 😉
“Always respect people who seek the truth.”
Which is just really funny coming from someone who can’t accept the truth that they argue for crap and this is why they loose arguments. Maybe this is why I respect Tony and I think you’re just looking to have your confirmation biases stroked.
“And, always doubt people who say they have found it.”
You mean like you? No one here has laid claim to the absolute truth except possibly you with your steady stream of unfounded assertions people are supposed to accept as unquestioned truth simply because they came from the mouth of nick. That you fail to persuade others to the “rightness of your truth” is again (and again) your failure in argumentation. You lose arguments, nick, because your arguments are weak – sub-standard logic often backed with little or no evidence other than “nick and his widdle feelin’s says so”. Just like you are losing to Tony right now.
However, if you don’t want me to join in and point out what’s wrong with your statements, you certainly have a strange way of showing it. Inviting comment won’t stop me any more than trying to oppress comment. You making better arguments might though. Maybe you should look into that.
That you continually appealing to emotion as if it somehow gives you a superior argument when such appeals are a manifest and well accepted logical fallacy is simply funny. Your emotional state is irrelevant to the logic and evidence in an argument. You’ll feel a lot better once you realize that.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. So hard of learning for someone who claims to be a seeker of truth.
Carry on.
ID707:
” You live solely in your own mind.”
is that an insult? It is quite true, we all live in our own minds.
rafflaw:
so you are the HMFIC and the CCABW?
rafflaw, In Wi. if it’s just you no work comp is required. I assume the same in IL.?
TonyC, I heard a great line recently. “Always respect people who seek the truth. And, always doubt people who say they have found it.” Right and wrong are very relative words.
“And now….here’s Spock!” We’re about to be dazzled by his profound words, logic, and probably a litle venom.
@Idealist: Why not?
Why should I write to meet your demands? If you address a question to me or the world, I will answer as I see fit. I do not demand any special consideration, respect or deference from you or anybody else here; nor will I provide it. This is not my job, it is my entertainment. Grow a thicker skin, or just do what everybody does, write a post denying whatever crimes for which you think you are unjustly charged.
I will not make an effort to be careful of your sensitive ego; and in the spirit of egalitarianism, please make no special effort to be careful of mine.
Tony C.,
One correction or note: I am king of my business because the only employee is me! 🙂
@Nick: We all respond differently to our work experience, but that’s the beauty of life. I think we can agree we wouldn’t want it any other way.
That is also the ugliness of life, Nick, people that learn the wrong lessons from their work experience, often because they are so vested in the idea that they never did anything wrong that they arrive by pretzel path to wildly inaccurate assumptions about the motivations of others, because that is the only way for them to explain the outcome without accepting any of the blame.
So I actually would want that to be another way.
ID, I’m making what I call Italian stew. It’s something I just invented using leftovers. My parents and grandparents lived through the Depression and taught me well. I have some leftover marinara sauce and green beans and potatoes I need to use. I saute boneless chicken and spicy Italian sausage w/ onions, potatoes, carrrots, green beans, and red pepper. I then simmer it in the marinara sauce for an hour or so. Served w/ some crusty Italian peasant bread. Nothing fancy, just wholesome, hearty and good. Fits both our personalities. Maybe we’ll break bread someday, it’s a small world.
Some people mistake others having a low opinion of them as the other having a high opinion of themselves.
This is an example of what is called projection in psychology.
Betty Kath,
I’m pulling out. Dealing with hardheads and nutheads is tough work. Need food. One less noise maker.
You are sweet voice of reason here. Was so glad when you said your first words. Not all of them, but the first ones! 🙂
NickS,
I think you are too kind when speaking of GeneH.
I have spoken of vultures/turkey buzzarda (NC) before.
It describes him well. I even once shared the same, not for rhe same purpose as he however.
I looked for others fights, n’importa qui. to quibble with both or take sides. Again, just as it fell in for me to do.
Now GeneH has a tracker on me (hee hee, I should dream) and pops up whenever I have a discussion with someone in order to stick me.
He should get a job on Crossfire, saw recently on Youtube how Jon Stewart handled them!!!
Notice how Gene always comes back to logic. He and Plato are in the same cave. He is proof that a good mind can be ruined by a bad spirited personality.
I have kicked TonyC several times and will continue to do it when he hops up on his pedestal/highhorse/whatever role he’s wearing for the day.
Some other time I’ll tell you of other a55es who also have too high opinions of themselves.
I respect, but refuse to worship either TonyC or any othere arsle here.
So what’s for dinner? And you won my heart telling us of your wife’s need for comfort food and when she needs it. Thanks for inviting us into the family.
Takes a big warm and secure heart to do that!!!!
Yeah. A clever double entendre you’d have never gotten without an explanation is so much less funny than comparing a Congressman to the Chinese because “everyone knows” the Chinese are all short. 🙄
Joke rule #1. If you have to explain a joke, it sucks.